In this new era of space exploration and technology, North Carolina State alumni are contributing to a range of space missions and programs. Three-time NC State alumna Christina Koch recently became the first woman to fly to and around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission.

Several NC State College of Engineering alumni are supporting space exploration efforts at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. From spacesuit design to flight stability research, their work helps develop the technologies and systems that enable future exploration.

Darius Yaghoubi (Aerospace Engineering ‘07)

Darius Yaghoubi contributed to the design and development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Artemis campaign. He began working at NASA Marshall in 2007 after graduation, performing Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) design and analysis on the Ares I launch vehicle.

Although Yaghoubi’s most recent work has been at NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office, he spent eight years working on the SLS program, including the Artemis II mission. The SLS program kicked off in 2011 as the only rocket that can send astronauts and cargo to the moon in a single launch. The SLS rocket recently sent Orion and four astronauts around the moon as part of the Artemis II flight. In Yaghoubi’s years at NASA, he’s had the opportunity to work as an engineer on the Ares I launch vehicle, Artemis, the Mars Ascent Vehicle and Mars Sample Return and approximately 40 planetary and lunar missions, such as Europa Clipper.

Yaghoubi’s contributions to Artemis were in the Control Systems Design & Analysis branch; he was tasked with flight stability and analysis of the SLS launch vehicle. As NASA’s lead pogo stability analyst, he led a team to analyze and mitigate a specific type of dynamic instability. This instability can occur in large-scale liquid-propelled launch vehicles when fluid modes of vibration align in frequency with axial structural modes of vibration. If not for understanding and mitigation of this phenomenon, these vehicles could shake themselves apart in flight.

Yaghoubi said one of the biggest advantages of working at NASA is that the agency is not driven by profit. He appreciates that the focus is “on doing the work for the sake of science” and advancing knowledge for the benefit of humanity.

“We take on the difficult tasks that are inaccessible to the public, things that may take years or even decades before we start seeing a return on investment,” Yaghoubi said.

Patrick Mills (Electrical Engineering ‘16)

Patrick Mills began working at NASA in 2016 through the co-op program at NC State. As Launch Vehicle Lead Engineer for the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), Mills helps work toward the goal of safe and cost-effective human transportation to the International Space Station. 

Mills leads technical assessments of the Falcon 9 rockets that carry the crew to space prior to docking at the space station. In order to do this, he works with a large, multidisciplinary engineering team across NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). So far, Mills has supported 13 crewed Falcon 9 launches.

Mills said he believes that space exploration is one of humanity’s noblest pursuits. 

“This is an incredibly exciting time for human spaceflight with the upcoming Artemis and Moon Base missions,” Mills said. “The technologies and skills that we develop by living and working in space do not only help us reach further into the stars, but they also provide direct benefits to the people on Earth.”

Logan Kennedy (Aerospace Engineering ‘09)

Similarly to Mills, Logan Kennedy got his start through the co-op program at NC State. He has been working on the Human Landing System (HLS) since 2019 when the program first started.

“I have wanted to work for NASA since I was a kid,” Kennedy said. “I’m a big fan of the Apollo mission, so it has been fascinating to have a hand in NASA’s return to the moon.”

Kennedy is a leader within the umbrella of the Artemis program, working between the Lunar Lander’s HLS system and Spacesuit program. He was the HLS representative at the Artemis II launch party in Huntsville, Alabama and was allowed to sit in the console on launch day as a way to learn and prepare for other upcoming missions.

The area of work Kennedy said he has found most interesting is the “exploration atmosphere” problem. This refers to the issue that astronauts need to go from the atmosphere inside of the lander’s cabin, which is higher pressure and has a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, to the atmosphere in their spacesuits, which is low pressure and 100% oxygen, and back again. 

According to Kennedy, this is solved by reducing the amount of N2 in the astronauts’ bodies. This process prevents astronauts from getting the bends, or decompression sickness. Difficulty comes from balancing cabin flammability, suit mobility and other issues, he said.

Many intelligent people are necessary in the process of getting a few people into space; sometimes we don’t think about these invisible problems that can have a monumental impact.

Ashlee Bracewell (Civil Engineering ‘21)

Ashlee Bracewell graduated with a degree in civil engineering, something she admits is rare to see at NASA, but she believes has provided an unexpected advantage in her work, diversifying the skills on her team.

Bracewell is Static Structural Test Engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center. She is involved in SLS and Artemis, testing SLS to be qualified for flight. This is a multi-year, multidisciplinary project made up of hundreds of qualification tests. Bracewell’s group ran the structural qualification campaign for SLS. She has found that her background in civil engineering has been beneficial to testing structural loads through the rocket and into test stands.

In order to qualify SLS for flight, sections of the SLS rocket were delivered to MSFC and installed into massive structural test stands. Subsystems were integrated to the test stand, meaning thousands of strain, temperature, deflection and load sensors were hooked up and tested for up to several months. The test engineer leads assessments involving putting the rocket section through all potential loading configurations that would simulate flight, sometimes even testing to failure in order to fully understand the piece’s true capabilities. The goal of this testing is to garner confidence that the vehicle will be functional when they put astronauts or payloads on it and to gather data from all of the sensors that were hooked up to each piece of the rocket.

As a test engineer, Bracewell often works with over 50 people on a project, coordinating with stress analysts and other engineers over the years-long process. She has worked on several SLS tests as a supporting engineer, and now she is leading others. Bracewell’s work will enable the continuation of the Artemis program and commercial industry missions.

Thinking Like an Engineer

Both Mills and Kennedy participated in the co-op program while attending NC State, citing it as one of the biggest factors in helping them prepare for their careers after graduation. The four engineers agreed that while no school can fully prepare students for the specific work they will perform in their careers, their experience at NC State helped them learn to “think like an engineer.” Yaghoubi credits his senior design project with helping him develop that mindset. He said the rigor of design reviews and the expectations set by his professor prepared him for a professional engineering environment, transforming him “from an engineering student into an engineer.”